The Latest from the Authentic Magisterium®

Francis: It is a sin to base social policy on legitimate, understandable fears concerning the effects of Muslim immigration. But adultery is not sinful in “complex circumstances.”

As this grotesque mockery of a papacy continues with so sign of abatement, we learn that Francis has just bestowed the title of Commander in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great on none other than Lilianne Ploumen, former Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in the Netherlands, who is one of the world’s foremost promoters of abortion on demand. As Michael Hichborn (a fellow parishioner of mine) reports:

“After US President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, Ploumen launched a new NGO called She Decides to provide mass amounts of funds to organizations that would no longer receive funds from the US government. The Mexico City Policy automatically denies US funding for international organizations which perform or promote abortion.

“Referring to the Mexico City Policy as a ‘Global Gag Rule,’ Ploumen stated that the intention of She Decides was to continue support for existing programs being run by organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International. She said, ‘These are successful and effective programs: direct support, distributing condoms, making sure women are accompanied at the birth, and making sure abortion is safe if they have no other choice. By July of 2017, Ploumen’s program had raised over $300 million."

Let this sink in: in the name of Pope Gregory the Great, a wayward successor on the Chair of Peter has conferred the dignity of a papal knighthood on a woman who declares publicly her undying commitment to “making sure abortion is safe if they have no other choice.” Let no one object that Francis merely provided a pro forma papal blessing to a ceremonial honorific. He surely knows the worldwide scandal this has caused, but just as surely will never revoke the honor. Message received!

Meanwhile, the entire Church is expected to hang on Francis’s every word concerning this or that matter which preoccupies him, for as he has made clear in one of his multitude of infamous interviews: “I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium.” Constantly indeed! And this constant stream of “magisterium” includes the obsessive repetition of Francis’s opinion on the imaginary moral duty of European nations to welcome their invasion by endless waves of “migrants” and “refugees” the large majority of whom are military age Muslim males.

The most recent example is a sermon on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Like the politician he clearly wishes to be, on this occasion Francis spoke out of both sides of his mouth, the better to advance the result that one side of his mouth has never ceased advocating: the effective Islamicization of Western Europe. Quoth Francis:

In today’s world, for the newly arrived, to welcome, to know and to recognize means to know and respect the laws, culture and traditions of the countries in which they are welcomed….

So far, so good. But of course we know what is coming next from our bitter experience with the maddening Bergoglian two-step: exactly the opposite thought, which is the real point of the sermon. Thus, Francis continued:

It is not easy to enter into the culture of others, to put ourselves in the shoes of people so different from us, to understand their thoughts and experiences. And so often we give up the meeting with the other and raise barriers to defend ourselves. Local communities sometimes fear that newcomers disturb the established order, “robbing” something that has been painstakingly constructed. Even the newcomers have fears: they fear confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure.

These fears are legitimate, based on doubts that are fully understandable from a human point of view. Having doubts and fears is not a sin. Sin is to let these fears determine our responses, condition our choices, compromise respect and generosity, feed hatred and rejection. Sin is to renounce the encounter with the other, the encounter with the different, the encounter with others, which in fact is a privileged opportunity to meet the Lord.

To summarize this double-talk: (a) “migrants” and “refugees” (i.e., basically hordes of well-fed, military age Muslims) should respect the laws, culture and traditions of the European nations into which they are swarming; (b) fears that millions of Muslim “migrants” and “refugees” will not respect “laws, culture and traditions” of European nations, particularly in local communities, are legitimate and fully understandable; but (c) civil authorities would sin if they based their immigration policy decisions on legitimate and understandable fears about the effects of Muslim mass migration.

Or, more simply: there must be no restriction on Muslim mass migration, and certainly no “barriers” such as those “sinfully” erected by Poland and Hungary in order to “renounce the encounter with the other.”

So, according to Francis, calling a halt to mass Muslim migration, or even sharply restricting it, would be sinful. But living in a state that the Catechism of John Paul II calls “permanent and public adultery” is not sinful for many in that state, nor is it any impediment to their reception of Holy Communion, given their “complex circumstances.” No “complex circumstances,” however, would justify halting or restricting Muslim mass migration, even based on legitimate and understandable fears about its effects.

Confronted with rising opposition to his novelties, Francis has dared to affix the label Authentic Magisterium® to his approval of Holy Communion for public adulterers, even though it introduces “a discipline alien to the entire Tradition of the Catholic and Apostolic faith.” Doubtless he would, if he deemed it expedient, apply the same label to his view that the “welcoming” of an indiscriminate number of “migrants” and “refugees” is a moral imperative of nations and that its rejection is sinful.

The label as applied by Francis deserves the mockery of the registered trademark symbol because, by standing in opposition to all his predecessors on a matter as fundamental as the sin of public adultery and its consequences respecting the discipline of the Sacraments, Francis himself forfeits any claim that his personal brand of thought can be identified with the perennial Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church. With each passing day of “this disastrous pontificate,” the distinction between what Francis thinks and what the Magisterium teaches impresses itself ever more deeply on the Catholic mind.

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Christopher A. Ferrara: President and lead counsel for the American Catholic Lawyers Inc., Mr. Ferrara has been at the forefront of the legal defense of pro-lifers for the better part of a quarter century. Having served with the legal team for high profile victims of the culture of death such as Terri Schiavo, he has long since distinguished him a premier civil rights Catholic lawyer. Mr. Ferrara has been a lead columnist for The Remnant since 2000 and has authored several books published by The Remnant Press, including the bestseller The Great Façade. Together with his children and wife, Wendy, he lives in Richmond, Virginia.